The system’s overarching goal is to assist elders with low-risk tasks and enable better health monitoring.
The goal will be achieved by fulfilling the following objectives:
1. Improving patient independence:
- Autonomously perform dictated tasks
- Allow patients to teleoperate the robot
- Provide rudimentary social engagement
2. Empowering caretakers:
- Provide analytics to healthcare providers
- Autonomously perform tasks or scheduled assistance
3. Bringing family members closer by:
- Enhance interactions through teleoperation
Use Case
Jenna is sitting down, going about her day when she suddenly starts feeling thirsty. She realizes that earlier in the morning when she woke up, the nurse kept her water bottle on the table far away near the wall. Now, she dreads the fact that in her age, with the limited mobility she has, she either has to force herself to get through the pain and get the water bottle, or ask a nurse for a help. She always feels like she has to depend on a human and instead of asking for help and feeling guilty, she just hides her pain. She remembers that she has Alfred as her companion. She just says, “Hey Alfred!” and the robot responds and starts listening to Jenna. Jenna says “Can you get me that water of bottle please?” Alfred knows that it’s that same old CMU shop water bottle that Jenna has kept dearly with her since her college days. Alfred goes to the table, gets the water bottle, and delivers it to Jenna. Jenna can now finally drink water after feeling thirsty for so long.
Jenna’s family wants to not just have a conversation with Jenna but also be able to help her by being telepresent in the room with her in the shape of Alfred. They call Alfred, Jenna picks it up, giving permission to the family to control the robot. The family goes around the room, draws her blanket while she’s in bed, remind her of her medicines and deliver them to her. They don’t feel as distant anymore.
